Dear Senator McCain and Mike Duncan, Chairman, Republican National Committee:

“Dear” is all you will get from me. By now you all should be in Minneapolis for your shindig that you call a “convention.”

I am an African-American, and I cannot hold back my anger any longer. It is a documented fact that the Republican Party before and during the Civil War supported and benefited from slavery. As a matter of fact, the Republican Party was started for the express purpose of defending slavery and holding down black people.
It is also a matter of record that the Ku Klux Klan was started by Republicans after the Civil War to terrorize and murder black and white Democrats in the South. Republicans hated the fact that many ex-slaves were serving in state and federal government. They also hated the fact that everyone of the ex-slaves were all members of the Democratic Party. All the white Democrats, before and after the Civil War, were sympathetic to the cause of abolition of slavery and of civil rights for blacks, therefore racist Republicans had no use for them.

The Republicans historically have been bitter opponents of the following Democratic initiatives:

• The 13th Amendment that abolished slavery in 1865
• The 1866 Civil Rights Act
• The First Reconstruction Act of 1867
• The 14th Amendment in 1868 that made all persons born in the U.S., including former slaves, U.S. citizens.
• The 15th Amendment in 1870 that give every citizen the right to vote
• The Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 which was to stop Republican Klansmen to terrorized white and black Democrats
• The 1875 Civil Rights Act
• The 1957 Civil Rights Act
• The 1964 Civil Rights Act
• The 1965 Voters Rights Act

In every case, the white Republicans in the Senate, especially Senator Everett Dirksen, and in the House of Representatives fought passage of these laws in every turn as well as being compelled to give up their slaves after the Civil War. The Democratic leadership, especially Senator Robert Byrd who has always despised the Ku Klux Klan and who discouraged white Americans from joining that gang, fought very hard to have those laws passed. Democratic Senator Al Gore Sr., not only voted for the Civil Rights Act in 1964, but he, along side of Senator Byrd, fought a 74-day filibuster by Republicans to defeat the legislation. The Congressional Quarterly of June 26, 1964 recorded that, in the Senate, only 69% of Republicans (46 for, 21 against) voted for the Civil Rights Act as compared to 82% of Democrats (27 for, 6 against) the Civil Rights Act. In the House of Representatives, 61% of Republicans (152 for, 96 against) voted for the Civil Rights Act and. 80% of Democrats, (138 for, 34 against) voted for it.

The Republicans have also opposed every Democratic anti-lynching bill to their shame. The Democrats have always been opposed to lynchings for decades.

For these reason, we black people deserve an apology from the Republican Party for the following:

• support of slavery, on record in their platforms
• support of the Dred Scott decision
• support of segregation and Jim Crow prejudice
• opposition to anti-lynching laws
• attempts to destroy black schools and colleges, and the burning of black churches
• efforts to defeat the Reparation Bill of 1866
• efforts to defeat every piece of Civil Rights legislation from 1863 to 1964
• efforts to have the 1875 Civil Rights Act declared unconstitutional
• support of the Ku Klux Klan, composed of entirely Republicans, and its vile and violent racist agenda:
• Republican participation in the lynchings of thousands of blacks.

History will also show the following:
• Eugene “Bull” Conner (the poster boy of American racism) was a Republican.
• The poll tax was a Republican institution.
• Black codes and Jim Crow laws were instituted by Republicans.

Africans Americans are even due reparations from the Republican Party since it supported and benefited from slavery as well as supporting KKK terror, racism, etc. The Civil Rights movement started because of the majority white racist Republican power structure in the South.

My conclusion is that if this nation was left to the devices of the Republican Party, African Americans would not be anywhere near where we are today. As a matter of fact I would argue that we African Americans would not have any constitutional rights, be U.S. citizens or otherwise because we would still be slaves!

The Democratic Party, of course, has had its problems racially here and there, unfortunately, but it does not have the consistent racist legacy for decades and decades, stretching back to the early 1800’s as the Republican Party has had. The Democratic Party, in general, has always been supportive of and open and honest with African Americans throughout its history.

It is time for the Republican Party to come clean, tell the truth, and settle the debt.

Sincerely,

Brother X